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Russian attacks and air raid warnings in Ukraine Wednesday as top U.S. and British officials met with President Zelenskyy in Kyiv. We get insights into what U.S. foreign policy would look like with either of the candidates in the White House. Residents in Southeast Asia are still reeling from Typhoon Yagi. And how health officials in Africa are working with American biotech companies to prevent the spread of deadly diseases around the world.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday he will not allow the Justice Department "to be used as a political weapon," as he denounced "conspiracy theories" and "dangerous falsehoods" targeting federal law enforcement.  Speaking to U.S. attorneys gathered in Washington and other Justice Department members, Garland forcefully defended the department's integrity and impartiality against claims of politicization by Republicans. Garland said norms protecting the department from political interference matter "now more than ever."  "Our norms are a promise that we will not allow this department to be used as a political weapon. And our norms are a promise that we will not allow this nation to become a country where law enforcement is treated as an apparatus of politics," Garland said to applause in the Great Hall at Justice Department headquarters.  Garland's comments come amid an onslaught of attacks from Republicans, who claim the Justice Department has been politically weaponized to go after former President Donald Trump. Trump was indicted in two separate criminal cases by special counsel Jack Smith, who Garland brought in from outside the department to run the investigations.  Trump has vowed if returned to the White House in November to "completely overhaul" what he has described as the "corrupt Department of Injustice." He has also threatened to jail those "involved in unscrupulous behavior" this election, writing in a recent post on X that they will face "long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again."  Garland did not mention Trump or Republicans in his speech. But he condemned what he described as "outrageous" attacks he says put law enforcement in harm's way.  "These attacks have come in the form of conspiracy theories, dangerous falsehoods, efforts to bully and intimidate career public servants by repeatedly and publicly singling them out, and threats of actual violence," Garland said. "Through your continued work, you have made clear that the Justice Department will not be intimidated by these attacks."  Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has repeatedly used social media to go after Smith and other prosecutors as well as the judges handling his cases. Republicans have also falsely claimed that the New York criminal case, in which Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in May, was orchestrated by Democratic President Joe Biden and the Justice Department.  Garland came into office pledging to restore the department's reputation for political independence after four tumultuous years under Trump. But he has faced an onslaught of criticism over his department's handling of politically sensitive cases, including the prosecution of Biden's son Hunter, who pleaded guilty last week to federal tax charges in a case brought by a different special counsel.  Garland said that department employees have made clear through their work that they "do not bend to politics" and that they "will not break under pressure."  "We must treat like cases alike," Garland said, adding. "There is not one rule for friends and another for foes, one rule for the powerful and another for the powerless, one rule for the rich and another for the poor, one rule for Democrats and another for Republicans, or different rules depending on one's race or ethnicity. "To the contrary, we have only one rule: we follow the facts and apply the law in a way that respects the Constitution and protects civil liberties."

Taipei, Taiwan — Chinese authorities have rolled out new propaganda efforts aimed at countering Western narratives about the human rights situation in the northwest Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Tibet. In recent weeks, they have continued to invite foreign vloggers to visit Xinjiang, home to millions of Uyghur people, a majority Muslim ethnic minority group. Also this month, China inaugurated an international communication center to produce content portraying some "positive developments” in Tibet, such as Tibetan people’s growing income. Since 2017, the United States, United Nations, European Parliament and rights organizations have condemned China for interning up to 1 million Uyghurs, forcing hundreds of thousands of Uyghur women to go through abortion or sterilization, and forcing Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang to work in factories, which prompted the United States to pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act in 2021. In Tibet, human rights organizations and Western countries, including the U.S., have accused the Chinese government of erasing the Tibetan language and culture through compulsory Chinese language education for Tibetan children, forcing hundreds of thousands of rural Tibetans to relocate to urban areas and replacing the name “Tibet” with the Romanized Chinese name “Xizang” in official documents. Taiwan said on September 5 it knows of reports China has been recruiting Taiwanese influencers to visit Xinjiang and help promote a more positive narrative about the region through their videos. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees cross-strait exchanges, said it was still looking into the recent surge of Xinjiang-related content produced by Taiwanese influencers and urged them to avoid violating an anti-infiltration law by accepting payment from Beijing. Taiwanese Youtuber Potter Wang claimed in June that the Chinese government had been inviting Taiwanese influencers on paid trips to China to produce content. His claims prompted several Taiwanese YouTubers who have recently published videos about Xinjiang to deny receiving payment from Beijing. In response to warnings from Taiwanese authorities, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said Beijing welcomed “Taiwan compatriots” to visit China and enjoy “the magnificent mountains and rivers, taste the various kinds of food, experience the local customs, and share what they have seen and heard.” Apart from inviting Taiwanese influencers to visit Xinjiang, Beijing has been inviting foreign journalists and vloggers to visit Xinjiang since the start of 2024. In several reports, China’s state-run tabloid Global Times said these foreigners learned about “Xinjiang's latest economic achievements, religious freedom, and ethnic integration” following visits to local industry, religious venues and residential homes. Some experts say Chinese authorities usually impose tight control over foreign influencers’ itineraries in Xinjiang to ensure the content they produce is aligned with the positive narrative that Beijing aims to promote, which is contrary to existing foreign media reports about mass internment of Uyghurs, forced labor of ethnic minorities or harsh birth control programs. “Foreign influencers usually spend time in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, and visit places like the Grand Bazaar, where they will try local food and watch dance performances that could seem to suggest that cultural forms of the Uyghur people are protected,” said Timothy Grose, a professor of China Studies at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Indiana. In addition to showcasing aspects of Uyghur culture, Grose said, foreign influencers’ Xinjiang videos will often portray Uyghurs being employed and local signs containing Chinese and Uyghur characters. “Beijing believes this is an effective strategy [to counter existing international narratives about Xinjiang] if they are indirectly controlling the types of pictures that are exported out of Xinjiang,” he told VOA by phone. By flooding social media platforms with Xinjiang content produced by these foreign influencers, Grose said, the Chinese government is trying to reach and influence casual viewers, especially younger audiences, with no deep knowledge about China or Xinjiang. “These casual viewers don’t have expertise in China, so they won’t know where to find signs of oppression in the videos since they are unfamiliar with the Uyghur culture or China’s ethnic policy,” he said. Since China is directly or indirectly filling social media platforms with content aligned with their preferred narrative for Xinjiang, Grose said, it will be difficult for academics, activists, and journalists to counter Beijing’s propaganda efforts with content that reflects the reality in the region. Telling the Tibet stories Beijing has also launched a new initiative to “tell the Tibet story well.” On September 2, several local and central Chinese government agencies inaugurated an “international communication center” in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, that aims to enhance Beijing’s ability to promote its preferred narratives about Tibet. During a roundtable event focusing on “building a more effective international communication system for Tibet-related issues,” French writer Margot Chevestrier, who works for China’s state-run China International Communications Group, said that many young Chinese people are affected by “biased reporting” on global social media and that these misunderstandings often stem from “misleading reporting by some media or individuals.” The new international communication center will “enable more people at home and abroad to know Tibet, understand Tibet, and love Tibet,” according to China’s state-run China News, an online news website. Some analysts say the communication center may serve as a centralized institution to “coordinate” Beijing’s propaganda efforts focusing on Tibet. “Since there doesn’t seem to be as much propaganda efforts on Tibet as on Xinjiang, Beijing might be thinking how they can use this tactic,” said Sarah Cook, an independent researcher on China and former China research director at nonprofit organization Freedom House. Cook said the amount of propaganda effort that China dedicated to Xinjiang and Tibet shows that these two issues are of a high priority for Beijing. “While Tibet and Xinjiang are their priorities, the tactics that the Chinese propaganda apparatus deploys are similar, including spreading disinformation through fake accounts, restricting foreign journalists’ access to certain places, and suppressing information that contradicts their preferred narrative,” she told VOA by phone. Since its propaganda efforts have been seemingly successful, Grose said, Beijing will continue to employ the same set of strategies to challenge existing facts about the situation in Xinjiang and Tibet. To push back against Beijing’s campaigns, he said, Xinjiang and Tibet-focused groups should try to increase their presence on social media platforms and create more “captivating and moving” visual content that is “properly contextualized” but can influence young audiences. Additionally, Cook said it’s important for individuals concerned about the situation in Tibet and Xinjiang to work with like-minded research groups and expose the different propaganda campaigns that China is pushing. “They can try to produce short videos informing people of Beijing’s tactics,” she said.

washington — The United States announced sanctions on Thursday on Cambodian businessman and ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat as well as several entities over alleged abuses related to workers who were trafficked and forced to work in online scam centers. The move comes at a delicate phase in relations between the United States and Cambodia, which has moved ever closer to Washington's strategic rival China despite U.S. efforts to woo its new leader Hun Manet, son of longtime strongman Hun Sen. Ly Yong Phat was appointed Hun Sen’s personal adviser in 2022. The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control said the sanctions targeted Ly's L.Y.P. Group Co. conglomerate and O-Smach Resort. It said it was also sanctioning Cambodia-based Garden City Hotel, Koh Kong Resort, and Phnom Penh Hotel for being owned or controlled by Ly. Bradley Smith, the Treasury's acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said the move was made to "hold accountable those involved in human trafficking and other abuses, while also disrupting their ability to operate investment fraud schemes that target countless unsuspecting individuals, including Americans." Cambodia and other countries in Southeast Asia have emerged in recent years as the epicenter of a multibillion-dollar criminal industry targeting victims across the world with fraudulent crypto and other schemes, often operating from fortified compounds run by Chinese syndicates and staffed by trafficked workers. The Treasury statement said scammers leverage fictitious identities and elaborate narratives to develop trusted relationships and deceive victims. In many cases, this involves convincing victims to invest in virtual currency, or in some cases, over-the-counter foreign exchange schemes, it said. The statement said traffickers force victims to work up to 15 hours a day and, in some cases, "resell" victims to other scam operations or subject them to sex trafficking. It noted that the U.S. State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report this year highlighted abuses in O’Smach and Koh Kong and that official complicity in trafficking crimes remained widespread, resulting in selective and often politically motivated enforcement of laws. Americans have been targeted by many of the scams. In 2022, in the U.S alone, victims reported losses of $2.6 billion from pig butchering – a type of long-term scam – and other crypto fraud, more than double the previous year, according to the FBI. The Treasury reportsaid that for more than two years the O-Smach Resort has been investigated by police and publicly reported on "for extensive and systemic serious human rights abuse." It said victims reported being lured there with false employment opportunities, having phones and passports confiscated upon arrival and being forced to work scam operations. "People who called for help reported being beaten, abused with electric shocks, made to pay a hefty ransom, or threatened with being sold to other online scam gangs," it said, adding that there had been two reports of victims jumping to their death from buildings within the resort. The report said local authorities had conducted repeated rescue missions, including in October 2022 and March 2024, freeing victims of various nationalities, including Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, Malaysian, Singaporean, Thai and Vietnamese. The U.S state department said in June that Cambodian government officials were complicit in trafficking and that some officials owned facilities used by scam operators. Spokespeople for Cambodia's government and foreign ministry did not answer phone calls or respond to messages seeking comment when asked about the sanctions. The U.S. and other governments have repeatedly engaged with Cambodia to put an end to the scam centers. Washington had considered sanctions for months, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters. They said the decision was initially expected earlier this year but had been delayed. A change of leadership to West Point-educated Hun Manet last year was seen by U.S. officials as an opportunity to mend ties with Cambodia, but despite U.S. efforts, its ties with China have steadily grown. Beijing sent warships to Cambodia this year and is backing the expansion of a key naval base.

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White House — President Joe Biden will host his second and final Quad leaders’ summit in his home state of Delaware on September 21, the White House announced Thursday.  Biden is planning to host the three other leaders of the group, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, and Prime Minister Kishida Fumio of Japan. The summit will be held on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, happening concurrently in New York.  The leaders are expected to enhance cooperation including the existing Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness, a key initiative aimed at countering China’s aggression in the South China Sea.  "The Quad Leaders Summit will focus on bolstering the strategic convergence among our countries, advancing our shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region, and delivering concrete benefits for partners in the Indo-Pacific in key areas," said White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre in a statement Thursday.  Biden hosted the first Quad leaders’ summit at the White House in 2021. The group has since met twice more in person in Japan. In a reflection of the importance of the group, Biden has hosted all the leaders for subsequent state visits at the White House.  India was scheduled to host this year, but the four leaders agreed that New Delhi will instead do so in 2025.  “President Biden’s visit to India in September 2023 for the G20 summit meant that it was difficult for him to return to India in January 2024, on the sidelines of India’s Republic Day in January 2024, as per India’s original planning,” said Aparna Pande, director of the Hudson Institute’s Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia.  Both India and the U.S. then became caught up in their own electoral cycles, making travel and summit-hosting respectively challenging, Pande told VOA.  With Biden and Kishida set to leave office, the Wilmington summit will be the last gathering of the current leaders. Whoever wins the U.S. November election, whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump, will be invited to the Delhi summit next year.

Nairobi, Kenya — The International Crisis Group says Islamic State in Somalia has become an important financial influence for terrorism, and a report suggests the leader of the branch might become the new overall head of the militant group. IS-Somalia is not as active on the battlefield as its local counterpart, the al-Qaida-linked terror group al-Shabab, which controls large parts of southern and central Somalia, but it is building relations with other IS branches, the International Crisis Group said in a report released Thursday. In addition, the report says, IS-Somalia is able to finance terror operations in other African countries. Omar Mahmood, a senior researcher with the International Crisis Group, or ICG, said IS-Somalia plays a bigger role outside Somalia than al-Shabab does. "Al-Shabab is by far and away a bigger threat,” Mahmood said. “But at the same time, Islamic State Somalia has, one, persisted despite some significant odds against it. And two, it's carved out a role for itself within the wider Islamic State network, particularly when it comes to serving as a financial hub between some of the affiliates and other parts of the Islamic State." The ICG said the Islamic State restructured its African operations in 2020, placing affiliates from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique under the watch of IS headquarters in Somalia’s Puntland region. IS-Somalia is reported to have between 100 and 400 fighters stationed in the northern part of the country. According to ICG, about half of the fighters are believed to be foreigners. Early this year, Puntland authorities arrested six Islamic State members who were Moroccans; they were later deported. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, since May of this year, the group has been increasingly active and has waged several attacks against security forces and business centers. IS-Somalia has also increased its activities in the port city of Bosaso and its surroundings, carrying out an extortion racket that it uses to support its fighters and activities. Richard Tuta, a Kenyan counterterrorism expert, said Somalia’s weak central government has enabled Somalia to be the financial hub of the IS group. "Somalia ... does not have strong institutions, so it's easy for such institutions to be compromised,” Tuta said. “It's easy to undertake both illegal and legal ways of fundraising towards terrorism activity. And because of the country's strategic location, it has a porous border, surrounded by an ocean, which is very hard to keep [under] surveillance." In May, the U.S. carried out airstrikes in Somalia targeting IS leader Abdulqadir Mumin. Mumin survived. Mahmood said that if Mumin becomes the overall head of Islamic State, his rise would signal the group's growing influence in Africa. "Now whether he's actually the head of the movement is something that's disputed,” Mahmood said. “There's a couple other figures that are thrown out there as well. And so that's a bit uncertain. It would be quite a big jump ... for the Islamic State to designate someone on the African continent, but it would also symbolize the growing role of Islamic State within ... the African continent." Puntland authorities have arrested dozens of IS members in the Bari region. Some have been handed jail terms. Others were executed for their involvement in terror activities and the deaths of civilians or government security forces. The ICG called for cooperation between the Somali government in Mogadishu and Puntland regional authorities to tackle IS-Somalia and urged outside actors to pay closer attention to the group’s activities.

new york — New York City Police Commissioner Edward Caban said he would resign Thursday, one week after it emerged that his phone was seized as part of a federal investigation that touched several members of Mayor Eric Adams' inner circle. Caban said he made the decision to resign after the "news around recent developments" had "created a distraction for our department," according to an email to the police department obtained by The Associated Press. "I am unwilling to let my attention be on anything other than our important work, or the safety of the men and women of the NYPD," he added. It was not immediately clear who will replace Caban as police commissioner. Inquiries to the police department were not returned. Caban was one of several high-ranking city officials whose electronic devices were seized last week by federal investigators, according to people familiar with the matter. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation. The subject of the investigation, which is being led by U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan, remains unclear. It was not immediately clear whether federal authorities were seeking information linked to one investigation or several. Federal authorities are also investigating Caban's twin brother, James Caban, who runs a nightclub security business, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person could not publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity. Edward Caban, 57, had been in charge of the nation's largest police department for about 15 months. Of Puerto Rican heritage, he was the first Latino to lead the 179-year-old NYPD. Other officials whose devices were recently seized include First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright; Philip Banks, the deputy mayor for public safety; his brother David Banks, the city's schools chancellor; and Timothy Pearson, a mayoral adviser and former high-ranking NYPD official. The searches added to a flurry of investigative activity around Adams' administration and his campaign. Adams, a first-term Democrat, was subpoenaed in July, eight months after federal agents seized his cell phones and an iPad while he was leaving an event in Manhattan. Federal authorities haven't publicly accused him or any officials of any crimes, and Adams has denied any wrongdoing. The investigation that led to Caban's devices being seized is not believed to be tied to a probe that led federal investigators to seize Adams' devices last November, according to two people familiar with the matter. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. On Tuesday, Adams acknowledged that the sudden increase in federal scrutiny had "raised a lot of questions and a lot of concerns." Caban joined the department as a patrol officer in 1991 in the Bronx, where he grew up. His father, retired Detective Juan Caban, had served with Adams, a former police captain, when they were both on the city's transit police force. Three of Caban's brothers were also police officers. Caban worked in precincts across the city, rising to sergeant, lieutenant, captain, executive officer, commanding officer, deputy inspector and inspector. He was the department's first deputy commissioner, second-in-command, before being named commissioner last year. Caban replaced Keechant Sewell, the first woman to lead the force. She resigned 18 months into a tenure clouded by speculation that she was not truly in control of the department after Adams appointed ex-NYPD chief Philip Banks as his deputy mayor of public safety. She is now the senior vice president of security and guest experience for the New York Mets. From January 1 to September 1, the department tallied 243 murders, compared with 279 in the same period last year. Burglary, grand larceny and auto thefts were also down. At the same time, there was a 17.8% spike in reported hate crimes, 11.1% jump in rapes and smaller increases in some other categories. Caban was also criticized for his handling of officer discipline. In April, he declined to take any internal department disciplinary action against two involved in the fatal 2019 shooting of a Black man, Kawaski Trawick, inside his Bronx apartment. Caban said the officers "acted within the law" and that the city's police watchdog agency waited too long to bring administrative charges. In August, Caban upheld a department administrative trial judge's recommendation to drop a disciplinary case against Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, who was accused of ordering officers to void the November 2021 arrest of a retired officer who previously worked for him. The trial judge, Rosemarie Maldonado, said the watchdog agency didn't have jurisdiction to investigate the case.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

WASHINGTON — More than six months after a crucial security deal between Washington and some Pacific Island nations was signed into law, key features of the Compacts of Free Association have not been implemented, raising questions in the region about U.S. commitment to its Pacific partners in the face of an increasingly assertive Beijing. In March, the passage of the Compacts of Free Association, or COFA, extended $7 billion in economic aid over 20 years to three Pacific Island nations: Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands. Additionally, COFA says Washington provides for their defense and can deny China access to their territorial waters, a maritime area larger than the continental United States. Since then, however, some parts of the deal have yet to be implemented, including services and health benefits for veterans who live on the islands. Currently, veterans must travel to nearby islands such as Guam or as far away as Hawaii to get the help they need. “The Biden-Harris administration has failed” to deliver veterans services to these Pacific Island nations, said Arkansas Republican Bruce Westerman, who is chair of the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee, during an oversight hearing on COFA this week. The U.S. State Department also has yet to establish a mandatory new office dedicated to diplomacy with the three islands. In addition, Washington’s federal programs and services agreement with Palau has not been renewed, and the current agreement expires on September 30. Federal services in limbo range from welfare benefits and food stamp programs to the U.S. Postal Service and veterans’ health benefits. “Many of our veterans living in Palau are suffering,” Hersey Kyota, Palau’s ambassador to the U.S., told the Indian and Insular Affairs Subcommittee in the oversight hearing, Tuesday. Palau is home to around 20,000 people; with that small population, it has the highest per capita rate of U.S. military volunteers. Kyota said at least three Palauan veterans have died by suicide since January. “They need medication; they need to travel to Guam or Hawaii, but most of them do not have enough resources to pay for their own ticket,” he said. Andrew Harding of the Heritage Foundation said the delays play to Beijing’s advantage. “The implementation process is failing,” Harding told VOA. “If we really want to prove that we are the preferred partner in the Pacific, especially to our COFA partners, we can’t have these types of questions be raised.” Greg Brown, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said, “This doesn’t look good. Now, it’s hurry up and wait, and who are we waiting for? We're waiting for ourselves. We're waiting for the Americans." At the hearing on Tuesday, Anka Lee, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, acknowledged the critical need for U.S. engagement with Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. “We know that the PRC is aggressive. They are pushing very hard, and we have to compete with them toe to toe,” he said to lawmakers, using the acronym for China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China. During the oversight hearing, Taylor Ruggles, the senior COFA adviser at the U.S. State Department, blamed some of the delay on communication issues between the White House and Congress and a focus on rolling out additional embassies in other Pacific Island nations such as Vanuatu. He said there’s an interagency meeting this week to get all the federal agencies together to move the process forward. That meeting, the second this year, is scheduled for Thursday. The first was held in April. Dr. Miguel H. Lopez, assistant undersecretary for health at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said this week the department would “provide a comprehensive model of care” to Pacific veterans that is equal to treatment veterans receive in the continental United States. Ambassadors to Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands told lawmakers at the hearing that they received letters from the Veterans Administration Monday night, just hours before the oversight hearing. “The [veterans] agreement calls for a one-year duration. We’re within six to seven months now, and we have not heard anything,” said Jack Soram, the Federated State of Micronesia ambassador to the United States. “We don’t have that much time. Veterans need this help,” said Representative Ed Case, a Democrat from Hawaii.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government on Thursday responded to Venezuela's disputed July presidential election by imposing sanctions against 16 allies of President Nicolas Maduro, accusing them of obstructing the vote and carrying out human rights abuses.  Those targeted by the Treasury Department include the head of the country's high court, leaders of state security forces and prosecutors. The move came days after the departure into exile of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the former diplomat who represented the main opposition parties and claimed to have won the July 28 presidential election by a wide margin.  Venezuela's electoral authorities declared Maduro the victor hours after polls closed, but unlike previous elections, they never released detailed vote tallies to back up their claim. Global condemnation over the lack of transparency prompted Maduro to ask Venezuela's high court, stacked with ruling party loyalists, to audit the results.  The court reaffirmed his victory.  Experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center, which at the invitation of Maduro's government observed the election, determined the results announced by electoral authorities lacked credibility.

LANSING, Kansas — The shuttered Kansas prison where the killers chronicled in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood were executed is now a tourist attraction.  Starting Friday, former wardens and corrections officers will lead two-hour tours of the stone-walled building in Lansing that first began housing inmates in the 1860s, The Kansas City Star reported.  The building, originally called the Kansas State Penitentiary, was without purpose after the Kansas Department of Corrections opened the newly constructed Lansing Correctional Facility in 2020. But instead of demolishing it, the Department of Corrections transferred control of the building to the Lansing Historical Society and Museum.  Upcoming events include a car show inside the prison walls later this month.  “We’re expecting the prison to open up to large crowds who want to know what went on inside those walls,” Debra Bates-Lamborn, president of the society, said after state prison officials handed over the keys this week.  For years, the prison carried out executions by hanging at the gallows — a site that visitors will not be able to access during tours. Since removed from prison grounds, the wooden gallows are now disassembled and under the state’s custody.  Among the notable inmates executed at the prison were Richard “Dick” Hickock and Perry Smith, who were convicted of murdering four members of the Clutter family on Nov. 15, 1959, in the family's home near Holcomb, Kansas.  Capote, along with his close friend and fellow writer Harper Lee, visited the prison while doing research for the book about the killings. Hickock and Smith were executed in April 1965, among the last inmates to be hanged in the state.  One spot on the tour is the Chow Hall, where the late country music legend Johnny Cash performed for inmates in 1970.  “Johnny Cash has always said that audiences in prisons are the most enthusiastic audience he’s ever played to,” Bates-Lamborn said.  The prison tour is modeled off of a similar tour in Missouri. About a year ago, a state lawmaker approached the Lansing Historical Society and Museum with the idea of preserving the prison by converting it into a tourist attraction.  Bates-Lamborn said she and another board member made the trip to Jefferson City to tour the Missouri State Penitentiary, which has been open for tours since 2009.  “Afterwards, I thought ours is a shoo-in and we’re so much better,” she said.  Tours of the facility will be held on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and are scheduled to run until October 26. Since the facility has no heat or electricity, the tours stop over the winter and will return in the spring.

NEW YORK — Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has been indicted on additional sex crimes charges ahead of his retrial in New York, Manhattan prosecutors said at a hearing Thursday.  The indictment will remain under seal until Weinstein's arraignment on the new charges, which is scheduled for September 18.  Weinstein, 72, is recovering from emergency heart surgery Monday at a Manhattan hospital to remove fluid on his heart and lungs and was not at Thursday's hearing.  Prosecutors retrying Weinstein's overturned rape conviction disclosed last week that they had begun presenting to a grand jury evidence of up to three additional allegations against Weinstein, dating as far back as the mid-2000s.  They include alleged sexual assaults at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, now known as the Roxy Hotel, and in a Lower Manhattan residential building between late 2005 and mid-2006, and an alleged sexual assault at a Tribeca hotel in May 2016.  Because the indictment is under seal, it was not known whether the new charges involved some or all of the additional allegations.  Prosecutors had been seeking to retry Weinstein after New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals, overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges earlier this year and ordered a new trial.  It remains to be seen whether the new charges will be included in the retrial, as prosecutors hope, or handled as a separate case by the court.  The new charges come after prosecutors in Britain announced last week that they would no longer pursue charges of indecent assault against Weinstein, who was the most prominent villain of the #MeToo movement in 2017 when women began going public with accounts of his behavior.  Weinstein, who co-founded the film and television production company Miramax, has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.  At Thursday's hearing, Judge Curtis Farber ruled that because of Weinstein's health concerns, he will be allowed to remain at Bellevue Hospital indefinitely instead of being moved back to the city's Rikers Island jail complex.  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office had signaled for months that new charges were imminent against Weinstein, who was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, having produced films such as Pulp Fiction and The Crying Game.  In July, prosecutors told a judge they were actively pursuing claims of rape that occurred in Manhattan within the statute of limitations.  They said some potential accusers who were not ready to come forward during Weinstein's first New York trial had indicated they were now willing to testify.  New York's highest court threw out Weinstein's 2020 conviction in April after determining the trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations from other women that were not part of the case.  Prosecutors have said one of the accusers in that case, Jessica Mann, is prepared to testify against him again. It's unclear if the second accuser, Mimi Haley, would participate. Her lawyer, Gloria Allred, declined to comment.  The Associated Press does not generally identify people alleging sexual assault unless they consent to be named, as Haley and Mann did.  Weinstein, who had been serving a 23-year sentence in New York when his conviction was quashed, was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape.  His 16-year prison sentence in that case still stands, but his lawyers appealed in June, arguing he did not get a fair trial in Los Angeles. Weinstein has remained in custody in New York's Rikers Island jail complex while awaiting the retrial.

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Nairobi, Kenya — A U.S. Marine Corps general who commands forces in Africa says stability and support programs for Somalia are in the works as the country prepares for the withdrawal of African Union troops in December. General Michael Langley, head of the U.S. Africa Command, said that after meeting this past weekend with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and his top military official, Major General Ibrahim Sheikh Muhyadin Addow, he’s confident the country can manage its own security after the December withdrawal of the African Union Transitional Mission in Somalia, known as ATMIS. Langley's remarks, in a virtual briefing to reporters Thursday, came 2 1/2 years after the multidimensional mission was authorized by the U.N. Security Council, in part to help stabilize the country following years of insurgency by the militant group al-Shabab. Langley said that Somali authorities have told him military operations in the southern and central parts of the country are focused on liberating some areas from the militants and stabilizing others. “The operations are ebbing and flowing,” Langley said. “I’ll just use some of their narratives. They have a young army, it’s a building army, so there are some successes and some setbacks, but I think the morale across the forces is building and they are very enthusiastic they’re going to be able to keep al-Shabab back on their heels going forward in future operations.” In a briefing to the Security Council in June, Mohamed el-Amine Souef, head of ATMIS, told the council that the threat posed by al-Shabab remains unpredictable. Citing a recent attack on Somali security forces in the Galmudug region, and a mortar attack on the ATMIS camp in Baidoa, he said the group still retains the ability to conduct devastating assaults. Although Somali forces supported by ATMIS have achieved significant gains in the fight against al-Shabab, support from international partners is essential to maintain the momentum, he said. After visiting Somalia, Langley arrived in Kenya, which contributes troops to ATMIS, where he said he plans to engage with the Kenyan military leadership to explore future prospects on how to help the Somali army hit its operational objectives. “They have been a tremendous partner with the Somali national army, institutionalizing, professionalizing, helping them to be able to operate in various areas, collaborating along the border to ensure the defeat of al-Shabab,” Langley said. In West Africa, U.S. troops recently withdrew from Niger, where they were ordered to leave after a military junta took power. Juntas that took power by force also rule Mali and Burkina Faso. Langley said the way forward on security cooperation across the Sahel is still to be determined, but added that U.S. forces will stay engaged. “In the interim, yes, we are pivoting to some degree on like-minded countries with democratic values and shared objectives and shared challenges across the coast of West Africa,” he said. “So yes, we are in talks with Cote D’Ivoire, in talks with Ghana and Benin, as well as we start to reset and calibrate some of our assets.” He said those countries are facing threats from terrorist groups like al-Qaida and Islamic State, which initially operated in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, but are now moving toward other countries across the region.

The U.S. presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump remains tight. But Harris has opened a sizable lead over Trump among one group of voters — women, who vote at higher rates than men. As VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports, Harris’ late entry into the race widened the political parties’ gender gap.